


Bloom

by inb4invert



Series: Catalyst [1]
Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Sad, Smitten Original Percival Graves, possibly canon-compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-22
Updated: 2017-10-22
Packaged: 2019-01-21 04:31:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12449736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inb4invert/pseuds/inb4invert
Summary: Seeing him there, a tall reed of a boy hovering uncertainly in his mother's shadow, head bowed beneath the brim of his Sunday hat, Graves had felt nothing less than a hot and sweaty fist clench with the grip of finality somewhere in the vicinity of his chest.





	Bloom

The first time he’d gotten a good look at the boy, actually seen him, Percival Graves had instantly thought of The Flower.

Even then he hadn't quite known what to make of it, never having been a man prone to understanding his own emotions at the best of times, but for at least two weeks during the spring of 1925, Graves had become fixated on a tiny, burgeoning plant.  
He'd noticed it early one morning on his way to work, a slender flash of green at his feet near the corner of Broadway and Park Place - blink, and you'd miss it. It’d been no more than a stem, really, pushing tenaciously through a crack in the pavement with the merest hint of a leaf cleaving protectively to its side.  
Graves had never paid much attention to his herbology lessons at Ilvermorny and he'd have been the first to admit it. With a mind for strategy and critical thinking, when it came to the nurturing arts, he was all thumbs rather than green ones. But even so, he’d known at first glance there was nothing magical about the little shoot curling its way towards the light in the dust and grime of the city street. Just an ordinary bit of urban foliage doing its best. At the time, that had struck him as being something sort of magical in its own right, and he'd admired the perseverance of the fragile little thing. The strength it must’ve taken for something so seemingly delicate to work slowly up through the solid concrete and somehow manage to hold its own. Graves had told himself that he was “rooting” for it, smirking to himself at his own little unspoken pun.

After that first glimpse, Graves had made a point of walking past the spot each morning as he braced himself for the day. It’d cheered him strangely to see the speck of life shivering in the shadows, cradled by the concrete it had made its home. A sort of silent ally, fighting for its corner of the city, providing him a secret moment of beauty and solidarity in a harsh world. Truth be told, he couldn't have said whether or not it was a flower exactly - perhaps it was a bush, or a sapling, even. Still, as the days passed, he'd come to imagine it as a flower. Destined to become something proud and beautiful: a breathtaking rose, all crimson petals and elegant, piercing thorns. Impossible to be overlooked.

Until the day came when he’d passed by the usual spot, his perfectly polished boots still gleaming with morning dew, to find that the flower, _his_ flower, was gone. Glad anticipation had turned instantly to a shock of surprised anger so fierce it passed through his core like a lightning strike. Crestfallen, he'd made his way through MACUSA’s halls with a head full of imagined scenarios, all leading to the demise of his clandestine little hope. Glowering at his desk, Graves had pictured the grubby hands of some ill-mannered child plucking away the tender young stem, only to replace the thought with a fantasy of careless shoes trampling endlessly over a scrap of bright spring green, grinding it down into the city's dirt. Had it bloomed overnight in his absence, tempting someone to steal it away from his sight? All throughout the day, it’d burned him to think that he would never find out what it was growing to become, and even more than that, it proved an irritation for him to know that he inexplicably cared. Even his staff had seemed to notice the especially sour turn to his mood, tiptoeing around him like cautious ghosts. By the end of the shift, Graves had been disgusted with himself, wondering what his fellow aurors would think if they could know the syrupy sentiment behind his frustrated scowls. How surprised and even disturbed they’d be to find such romantic notions buried in the granite of their superior's heart. That night, the warm glow of his solitary desk lamp like an island of light in the darkened Woolworth building, Graves had dismissed the trace of regret with a rare second glass of firewhiskey, certain to put the flower out of his mind for good. He was a decisive man, after all, a man of commitment. Pretty things fade and die, he'd told himself, and the rest of the world carries on.

And then, more than a year later, had come the matter of The Boy.

“I understand why I'm being punished, Sir,” Goldstein had said, all tremulous, childlike eyes and fidgeting hands. “I really, _really_ do, but if you could just take a look at him…. his name is Credence.”  
She had said the name with emphasis, as though the particular pairing of syllables would decide the thing itself, some unknown spell that, once spoken, would propel Graves into action. And perhaps it had, as no later than the very next afternoon he’d found himself being jostled amongst the gawking crowd gathered around the Second Salem woman and her ragtag brood. If anything, he had wanted to satisfy his own curiosity, catch a glimpse of the kid who'd driven one of his most talented aurors into an apparent fit of madness. Grimacing to himself both at the shrillness of Mary-Lou Barebone’s ludicrous exhortations and the futility of his wasted lunch break, that fateful glimpse had come, charging interest.  
Seeing him there, a tall reed of a boy hovering uncertainly in his mother's shadow, head bowed beneath the brim of his Sunday hat, Graves had felt nothing less than a hot and sweaty fist clench with the grip of finality somewhere in the vicinity of his chest. He’d stood, rooted to the spot as firmly as the building underneath which the crowd still murmured and ahhh’d, riveted by the simple sight of pale and slender hands, a sad, searching gaze, full lips pink and plush as the petals of a spring bloom. _Credence_ , he'd thought stupidly. _His name is Credence_.

From then on, Grave’s days and nights were lived out in a mounting haze of secret longing, caught up in the fevered need to shield and shelter his precious discovery. At first, he'd promised himself that it was only just to _look_ , a daily ritual of seeing that the boy was simply still there, still clinging to something like life beneath the eaves of the gloomy churchhouse. He would lean against the bricks at the mouth of a nearby alley, magically protected from sight while he watched Credence at some menial, perpetual task. All the while feeling as his throat closed up, palms perspiring with some unnamed emotion he was helpless to tame. His eyes roving hungrily over the boy's serene face, Graves would wonder every time what it was that he was thinking, watching for some hint, some subtle change of expression that might indicate Credence sensed him there. _Here is something special_ , he’d thought to himself, drinking every detail in, _here is something vital and worthwhile_.

Gradually, inevitably, the desire to bring himself closer had won out, and cursing himself over the loss of his senses, Graves had approached the boy one day while he shivered underneath a tattered awning seeking shelter from the rain. A warmth of protective fondness like the burn of firewhiskey had spread through him at the sight of Credence holding himself stiff against the cold even as he trembled beneath tightly folded arms. Graves had tried his best then to convey that warmth through his voice alone as he’d held out his hand to introduce himself, the whole time thinking: _he's going to touch me. Merlin's beard, he's going to finally put his hand in mine_ …

The first time he’d healed that very hand, afterwards, Graves had spelled his office silent and wept as though his heart would break. That night, spent with work and worry and helpless tears, he'd dreamed of Credence, red palms held up in supplication, and each drop of blood as it fell became the petal of a rose to seed the alley's darkness -- a blooming garden rising up through the crumbling pavement around their feet. Graves had held the boy close, kissing him deeply in dream as he never had in life, with a feeling of such gratitude and love cleaving through him like a crack in aging stone. Upon waking, he’d resolved himself to be kinder to Goldstein from then on.

In nothing but a mere matter of days, only a week or two, Grave’s entire being had been distilled down to one simple focus: to make Credence know his own worth. He’d known it wasn't magic, no spell or curse he'd ever learned, only the call of his soul's duty to see the boy thrive under his watchful gaze. Each time he’d come to find Credence awaiting him, he’d triumphed. Not one of the boy's carefully spoken thoughts escaped his attention, not one hesitant glance failed to tell a story he could listen to again and again. Coveting stolen moments like a dragon's hoard, he’d cherished every tentative touch, every single shuddering, anxious breath, the soft, gravelly words shared by a voice so used to silence. Once, Graves had even dared to take Credence's face into his hands, framing it so gently in the shelter of his trembling palms and pining, simply pining for the boy to understand how proud he was of him. How strong, how brave he was to stand there in the depths of a darkened alley, in a city such as this, with a man such as himself, wearing something as audacious as hope in his glistening eyes.

On the night that Grindelwald came for him, Grave’s only thoughts had been of Credence, naturally. Weaving a visible tapestry of defensive spells around himself, casting curse and counter-curse in what was arguably the duel of his life, he’d silently chanted something like a mantra in the back of his mind as he fought. _Not him. Not him, never him. Not Credence_.  
Finally, after what had seemed like hours, bent and nearly broken under the cruciatus curse, Graves had cast out his patronus into air turned thick with fading spells and witnessed something that until then he'd only heard of and never quite believed. In place of the fierce and prowling beast of prey he'd known and relied upon since boyhood, from the tip of his wand had emerged a gleaming rose. Still wracked with pain, Graves had nonetheless stared in a moment of blissful wonder as petals bloomed and unfurled endlessly around him, hanging against the darkness in a shimmering ghostly glow. It was a thing of beauty, ethereal and proud and entirely _his_. Impossible to be overlooked. Before his vision had completely gone, wand rolling uselessly from a hand grown limp and cold, something no more miraculous than a wistful smile had graced Grave's upturned face. “Oh, my boy…” he’d whispered as the light left him. “My beautiful boy.”

**Author's Note:**

> if you'd like to visit:  
> [roy-batty-boy.tumblr.com](https://roy-batty-boy.tumblr.com/)


End file.
